I purchased a Nikon D50 months ago and after the Air Force transferred me to Scott AFB I found a park near Lambert to take photos. I put the camera on auto for all my shots. Here is an example photo resized to 800x600. What is the best setting for shooting aircraft flying overhead and is using the auto feature a good idea? I was using the Nikor 300MM lens on full zoom when the planes came close to my location. Any help would be much appreciated.

When shooting aviation, I almost always put my camera on Aperture Priority. This way I can get the depth of field I want, and the camera will meter the shutter speed for me. I can also control the exposure compensation if it's a bright day, or a bright aircraft, and vice versa. The camera will still take care of the shutter speed. On auto mode, the camera does everything itself and you have no leeway with artistic value. Going up or down an exposure stop can have a huge effect on how a picture looks, and even how good the quality is.

I'll second all three of Jeff's comments. I shoot on manual most of the time and use a light meter to check settings. You can't entirely rely on the camera's meter as it more or less just averages the scene.

With my 50 I set the camera in "A" mode. That is aperture mode and then use the wheel to dial it to f/8. That will give you the best results (IMHO) and will give you good DOF and the fastest shutter speeds.

You will have to get good at using the clone tool to take away those dust spots. learn to crop tighter on the aircraft and resize to 1024.

I have the D-80, and I have to say that M/Manual mode is best. Yes, it's like flying a helocopter with trying to control your f/stop, exposure time, and ISO, but the shots are infinately better then anything the automatic mode will do. Sure there are arguments/scenarios where aperature or shutter priority are going to serve you better (namely when you don't have time to make the adjustments between shots), but if you have time to set up for the shot I would use manual mode shooting a few shots to get it right and know for a fact what is right as opposed to knowing only 1/3 of the equation.

Quoting Viv (Reply 7):To clean the sensor, use a blower brush with the brush part removed. Be careful not to touch the sensor.

I have a D50 as well and have successfully used a vacuum cleaner hose held beside the front of the camera to suck out any dust on the sensor. That way you don't need to touch anything inside the camera and there should be no risk of introducing dirt into the camera, as long as you have the machine switched on before bringing it near to the camera.

Well, of course care is required. However there should be no need for full power or more than few seconds of suction, nor should you stick the end of the hose right into the camera. The rest I leave to people's commonsense...